Major League Soccer is making strides, but Wednesday’s All-Star Game announcement confirmed once again that it’s the English Premier League that rules the football roost.

MLS confirmed that EPL power Chelsea will be the All-Star team’s opponent in this year’s contest, scheduled for July 25 at the Philadelphia Union’s PPL Park. It’s a matchup that will play well with casual fans, TV viewers and sponsors but which already has rankled some hardcore supporters growing weary of the apparent fixation on all things England.

This year’s All-Star Game will be the fifth straight featuring an EPL opponent and the seventh in eight years. The outlier was British as well—Scotland’s Celtic FC.

But for those longing for an All-Star dose of continental soccer or even opposition from Latin America, the harsh truth remains that EPL clubs have more name recognition among American sports fans, and draw more eyeballs, then any team on the planet outside Madrid or Barcelona. When it comes to its marquee summer event, MLS is going to play it safe.

“MLS actually prefers to secure world-class clubs as the opponent for the All-Star Game and the league does not have a preference to a specific (foreign) league,” MLS VP Dan Courtemanche said in a statement to Sporting News. “We had preliminary discussions with clubs from Spain, France, Italy, Germany and England for this year’s All-Star Game. Ultimately we selected Chelsea, as they are one of the biggest clubs in the world.”

Indeed, Chelsea is massive. The London club has a global fan base and is a regular offseason guest in the United States. It will be making its second All-Star appearance this summer, having lost to the MLS representatives, 1-0, in 2006 at Toyota Park outside Chicago. Chelsea’s upcoming American tour also will include a July 18 game against the Seattle Sounders and a rumored, but not confirmed, a July 28 meeting vs. AC Milan at FedEx Field in suburban Washington.

Nine years ago, MLS began to move away from the traditional intramural all-star format in an attempt to inject more intrigue and energy into the event.

While other leagues have resorted to gimmickry—the NBA has its skills contests and MLB its World Series home-field advantage—MLS attempted to create a game its all-stars would strive to win by asking them to put league pride on the line against a foreign club.

In 2003, MLS defeated Mexico’s Chivas de Guadalajara, 3-1, at The Home Depot Center. There was one last East-West matchup in ’04, then a streak of British opponents began the following year.

The All-Stars were doing quite well, going 5-0-1 against foreign teams, until the league invited Manchester United in ‘10. After a 5-2 loss in Houston, MLS couldn’t resist taking another crack at the Red Devils last year at Red Bull Arena. The hosts were humbled, 4-0.

Those scores might be embarrassing, but the attendance figures certainly weren’t. More than 70,000 fans showed up at Reliant Stadium two years ago and a sellout crowd of nearly 27,000 filled RBA last summer. In fact, every ticket for every All-Star Game featuring British opposition has been snapped up.

The EPL’s appeal translates to TV as well. Games featuring the likes of United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City routinely outperform MLS matches. In November, a Sunday morning game between Liverpool and Chelsea on Fox drew a 1.1 Nielsen rating. Compare that to the MLS Cup final later that day, a contest that featured Landon Donovan, David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy. Up against the New York Giants-Philadelphia Eagles game, MLS’ showpiece garnered a 0.8 for ESPN (more watched in Spanish on Galavision and in Canada).

Last Sunday, some 409,000 people saw Arsenal defeat City on Fox Soccer. That channel reaches far fewer households than either NBC Sports Network or ESPN, yet the EPL showdown was the week’s most widely watched soccer game on English-language TV.

If you want to get TV networks (ESPN2 and TeleFutura will televise this year’s All-Star game) and sponsors excited, the EPL is a sure thing. AT&T, this year’s title sponsor, will get a lot more mileage out of Chelsea than they would out of Boca Juniors, Valencia or Borussia Dortmund.

Scheduling matters as well, of course, and Courtemanche said that several clubs contacted by MLS regarding All-Star participation weren’t able to fit it in. The league also, through its Soccer United Marketing arm, promotes exhibitions throughout the summer featuring clubs from countries that aren’t England. That being said, it can’t be a coincidence that seven out of the past eight All-Star opponents have hailed from the Premier League.

SUM’s activities, and 16-year-old MLS’s decision to seek All-Star rematches with the likes of United and Chelsea, help pay the bills. Most MLS teams remain unprofitable and the money that comes in from the summer exhibitions helps sustain the growing enterprise. It also allows MLS to continue to do things that do appeal to more devoted fans, like lend extra support to clubs competing in the CONCACAF Champions League or entering the U.S. Open Cup.

In short, if a movie studio wants to make some real thought-provoking, quality films, it needs to turn out the occasional mindless blockbuster to help pay for it.

Chelsea will attract interest and will present the All-Stars with a formidable challenge. The four-time English champions currently feature some of the most well-known names in world soccer, including English national team stalwarts Frank Lampard, John Terry and Ashley Cole, Ghanaian midfield general Michael Essien, Spanish stars Fernando Torres and Juan Mata and Ivorian icon Didier Drogba. Some of those veteran players may be on their way out of London, however, if Chelsea hires a new coach who changes up the roster following a rocky 2011-12 season.

First-year manager André Villas-Boas was fired last month as the Blues slipped down the EPL table. Despite the upheaval, Chelsea has advanced to the semifinals of both the UEFA Champions League and FA Cup under interim coach Roberto Di Matteo. The Blues are in sixth place in the EPL at 16-8-9 and two points out of the fourth and final berth to next season’s Champions League.

MLS also announced Wednesday that Union coach Peter Nowak will manage the All-Stars. Prior to last year the position was merit-based, but the tighter summer schedule and the 2011 decision to add four more regular season games means appointing the host coach makes more logistical sense.

Nowak also coached the All-Stars back in ’06 when they defeated Chelsea outside Chicago. Dwayne De Rosario, then with the Houston Dynamo, scored the only goal that day. MLS will be hoping for a repeat in July, because exhibition or not, the perception remains that the EPL is soccer’s gold standard.